A group of private equity firms, including the Carlyle Group, agreed to buy financial advisory and investment banking firm Duff & Phelps Corp. for about $665.5 million.

Sacre bleu

The French government is being forced to find another way of imposing a top income-tax rate of 75 percent on high-wealth individuals after the country’s top constitutional authority killed the plan.

Merkel trickle

Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Germans that the nation’s economy would experience a harder time next year than in 2012 and cautioned that the eurozone debt crisis was far from over.

Baer season

William Baer, a Washington antitrust lawyer and former FTC official, was confirmed to head the US Justice Department’s antitrust division.

Galante is in

The head of the Federal Housing Administration, Carol Galante, was confirmed by the Senate despite mounting losses from souring loans at the mortgage funding agency that some fear could lead to a taxpayer bailout.